


find your way (back)

by glorious_clio



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Haysian smelt, Little Sisters, Sisters, hays minor, i hope you like feeling sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 20:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17587532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_clio/pseuds/glorious_clio
Summary: Paige and Rose are separated by five years and not much else. As a unit, they navigate the rise of the First Order on Hays Minor, and their eventual evacuation and separation from their beloved parents.But they trust in each other and in the future.





	find your way (back)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to diebrarian for looking this over. Any mistakes remain my own. 
> 
> You may shoot me with your words,  
> You may cut me with your eyes,  
> You may kill me with your hatefulness,  
> But still, like air, I’ll rise.  
> ~Maya Angelou

Her name is a forgone conclusion.

  
  


Paige was the one to name her sister. The five year old had resisted the idea of a sibling since Mama and Papa told her they were expecting, but as soon as Papa placed the newborn in Paige’s lap (her arms further supported by a pillow), Paige felt her resistance break. This was her baby, too. Her baby forever and ever. The previous months’ whining that she’d rather have a dog were forgotten when the baby opened her eyes.

Papa hovered nearby as the meddroid cared for Mama in the other room. Paige considered her new baby. Eventually her face crinkled and she began to cry; Papa scooped her up before Paige could panic. He settled the baby in the crook of his arm and reached down for Paige’s hand. She took it and he led her into her mother.

“So what do you think?” Mama asked, carefully neutral.

“She seems tough. She can stay,” Paige replied. The home delivery had rattled her, with a visiting meddroid, and being forced out of the house so as not to hear the ordeal of her sister’s arrival. The neighbor kids were around, but they were playing First Order and Paige didn’t like that game, so after yelling at them to leave her alone, she tucked herself in her father’s vegetable garden near the melons. And waited.

It helped now to see the baby, to see Mama look tired but happy.

Mama smiled wider. “My Paige,” she opened her arms and Paige fell into her mother’s embrace.  

The baby wailed louder, even as Papa rocked her. Mama cuddled Paige again and whispered, “Wanna stay while I feed her?”

“How do you feed her?”

“Watch.”

Paige shifted to the side so her mother could sit up, then opened her top to reveal her breasts, swollen beyond Paige could remember them looking.

Mama looked at Papa and signed to him, and Papa, also smiling, handed the baby over.

“ _Do you need anything, dear one?”_ he signed to Mama.

“ _Maybe some water?_ ” she signed back.

Papa smiled as if remembering something, and went to get a glass.

Mama positioned the baby, muttering soft things to the newcomer. The crying seemed to lessen as the baby found her nipple, and soon, like magic, the baby was sucking.

“Milk,” Mama said. “Or it will be in soon. Maybe someday, if you have a baby, you can feed them like this.”

“What color is the milk?” Paige asked, untrusting.

“White,” Mama answered with a chuckle.

“Is that how you fed me?” Relief was evident in her voice; Paige was not a fan of Bantha milk.

“Oh yes. It took us a bit to figure it out, but you were a tough little baby, too,” Mama said. “You liked milk back then.” She gently pinched Paige’s cheek.

Papa returned with the glass of water, and Mama, juggling the baby a bit, managed to take it and drink it all. Papa curled up next to Paige on the bed, pulling her into his lap and they all watched the baby for awhile. Mama switched the baby to the other breast, and Paige sighed, growing a little bored but not willing to move. Papa’s arms were warm around her.

“ _Have you thought of a name yet?_ ” he asked her.

“ _Not yet,_ ” Paige signed back.

“ _That’s okay,”_ signed Mama one handed.

“ _We’ll wait until you think of one,_ ” Papa agreed. “ _We didn’t think of your name for three days, Pae._ ”

 

*****

 

They were expressly forbidden to climb the spoil tips ever _ever_ , but all the other kids at school agreed that it was the best vantage point to see the nearby village of Sebris Gamma. The Tico girls weren’t afraid of the spoil tips (even though Mama and Papa warned them that the overflow from the Haysian mines was dangerous, toxic, poisonous, and the piles themselves were loose and shifting). They wanted to see. Last night, Sebris Gamma had been bombed by the First Order, who weren’t even trying to deny it. The people of the village had refused to move when the First Order discovered more Haysian underneath them.

It had been years since the neighborhood kids played First Order.

“Is that gonna happen to us, Pae Pae?” Rose asked around the dirty thumb in her mouth.

“Of course not,” Paige said, pulling her little sister’s thumb out and folding the damp hand in hers.

Six and eleven, the two sisters surveyed the smoking damage, the destruction of homes, the deep craters. The once familiar Serbris Gramma was decimated. Rose began to cry loudly.

“It can’t happen to us,” Paige said, wiping away her own quiet tears. “There’s no Haysian under our village. Besides, our mines are still meeting their quotas.” Mama told her that just this morning. “ _For now,_ ” Mama had added. Paige was careful not to say this to Rose. She had to protect the Tico baby.  

Paige reached down and tugged a lock of her sister’s hair. “C’mon. We shouldn’t be up here. We’ll have to wash before Mama and Papa see us.”

Sniffling, the baby nodded.

They carefully picked their way down the pile and slipped through the rundown neighborhood to their house. Mama and Papa weren’t home from the mines yet, as was so often the case. As soon as Paige locked the door behind them, she sent a comm to the neighbor lady to let them know they were home from school. The girls stepped carefully from their boots.

“Go wash your hands and face. I’ll come comb out your hair after I wash the spoil off these,” Paige said, taking charge of their boots.

By the time Mama and Papa got home, Paige and Rose looked as if they never were crying, like they hadn’t been climbing the tips. Mama and Papa were distracted and worried-looking as they made dinner, checked the girls’ homework, and tried to relax from the day.

Paige and Rose made themselves small and quiet; all the unspoken words moved around the family like the Haysian spoil that they lived under.

 

*****

 

It started as a whisper, a rumor, and then children began going missing. There were horror stories of babies snatched out of a cradle, a stroller, out of a caregiver’s arms. The First Order needed to grow their ranks.

Paige was 15, Rose was 10, and they were too old to be likely targets. Yet the fear of having them taken was almost too much to bear.

And there was tension in the air, like too much rain bringing the danger of landslides from the spoil tips. It was only a matter of time before everything would collapse.

“ _Stick close together_ ,” Papa signed to them every day before the girls left for school.

“ _If you see another child walking alone, bring them into your group,”_ Mama would add.

“ _Safety in numbers,_ ” Papa would agree.

The family signed most of the time now, as if speaking aloud would trigger an avalanche. “ _I love you I love you I love you,_ ” became pragmatic.

Soon, older kids, sibling sets were disappearing - caregivers were sending their children away. The whisper, rumor, was that the Resistance was helping. Not to grow their numbers, but because Leia Organa could not bear to see another planet obliterated. Families were asked to make a choice - keep their children or send them away, hoping against hope that this was a safer option. Choose, or run the risk of having them stolen. The devil you knew, versus the devil you didn’t. Children were being settled in the mid-rim on planets that were deemed safer. Many were placed with distant family members who were able to sponsor the children; others were protected in shelters until suitable families could be found to care for them.

“ _I want to take Rose,”_ Paige signed to her mother. “ _I can keep her safe. We can keep each other safe_.” Even on the Outer Rim, beings trusted Senator Organa, leader of the Resistance. She had dedicated her life to cleaning up messes and protecting the vulnerable. And fighting for what was right. Paige trusted this chance to protect her baby. She certainly wouldn’t leave without her.

Mama brushed her fingers over Paige’s cheek. “ _You two are old enough to decide. We’ll talk to her and Papa tonight_.”

Rose didn’t want to leave her Mama and Papa, but she trusted Pae Pae and reluctantly agreed to be spirited away.

The arrangements were made, fast and secret, and the sun set on their last day together. Two small packs were waiting by the door, and the family was sitting together, waiting for a knock.

“ _We have something for you_ ,” Papa signed, drawing Rose on his lap. Rose didn’t say she was too big for a cuddle.

“ _Are you coming with us?_ ” she asked.

Mama stroked Paige’s back on the old low sofa. “ _It’s something to help you find your way back to us_ ,” she signed.

Papa drew a box out of his pocket, and Paige stood up to see.

Rose opened it with trembling fingers. Inside were two pendants, locked together to make the stylized snowgrape of the Otomok system, engraved with...

“ _It’s Hays Minor,”_ Paige noted, the planet she and her sister had been born on.

“ _We made them, they’re Haysian smelt, a reminder that we are a family,”_ Papa said, reaching out for Paige’s hand, placing her half of the medallion in her palm.

“ _It’s also a map,_ ” Mama signed. She stood behind Paige, her hands on both her girls. “ _Papa and I have been working on them since our family meeting_.” She lifted Paige’s necklace and placed it around her neck.

“ _Stick close together_ ,” Papa signed. He helped Rose with her necklace.

Rose was crying now, and the family embraced until there was a knock on the door. Mama answered it while Paige wiped her sister’s tears and wrapped a scarf around her neck to hide the necklace. She tucked her own down the front of her shirt.

“ _Ready?_ ” Papa asked.

Eyes full of tears, Paige shook her head and threw her arms around him. But it was time to go. Their escort waited at the door. Patient as the family said goodbye, but anxious to hurry the girls on their way, out of reach from the First Order.  

As a unit, the Ticos embraced again at the door, tears and signs of love flowing freely.

 

*****

 

They were processed with many other refugees from all over Hays Minor. The dorms they were housed in on Takodana were crowded and loud with kids chatting, laughing, playing, and crying. It was a whole mess of noises. Counselors walked to and fro, warning kids that lights out were in 15 minutes. They was checking on kids, wiping tears, answering questions, passing out toothbrushes.

Paige found a bunk bed, she and Rose crawled up on the top bed and pulled the provided curtains around them. It did little to dampen the sound, but the low light suited their low mood. Rose took off her scarf, Paige pulled her necklace out of her shirt and the two fitted them together.

Paige wiped a few more tears off of her baby’s face.

“ _You know_ ,” she signed, “ _I was the one to name you_.”

“ _Yes, I know,”_ Rose signed back. “ _Papa told me_.”

“ _I named you the past tense of Rise_ ,” Paige drew her sister closer. “ _Even as a kid, I feared the First Order. When you were born, I wanted to imagine a future where not only did we rise up against them, we were victorious. Rose. We rose. You rose._ ”

Rose was crying even harder now, her sleeve was soaked. Paige reached behind her and pulled the pillow out of its case, handing the fabric to Rose.

“ _You’ll see. We’ll rise, and in the end, we’ll be here longer than the First Order. You and me._ ”

“ _And then we’ll go back to Hays Minor,_ ” Rose managed.

“ _Exactly, and Mama and Papa will be there waiting for us. For now, just remember, your name is our destiny._ ”

Rose nodded and crawled into her sister’s lap. She really was getting too big for this, but Paige was grateful for the solid weight of her sister against her.

Without taking off their boots, without brushing their teeth, Paige and Rose fell back against the scratchy pillow (the case still knotted in Rose’s hands). Paige wiped the last few tears from her sister’s red eyes, kissed her on the forehead.

“Sleep, Rose. Someday, this will be a memory,” she whispered, her voice warm with love.

Tomorrow, together, they would rise.


End file.
